The Legend of Zelda: What Is The Four Sword?

Quick Links

• The Minish Cap

• Four Swords

• Four Swords Adventures

• The Current Status Of The Four Sword

When the discussion of weapons arises when talking about The Legend of Zelda, the topic usually shifts to the Master Sword, but there is one other sword that shows up in multiple entries in the series and is incredibly powerful: the Four Sword.

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While the Four Sword was only important to three Zelda games — The Minish Cap, Four Swords, and Four Swords Adventures — it played a major role and had its own origin story as well. When discussing the Four Sword, it is much easier to get a comprehensive understanding of the topic when looking at the game in the order of the timeline, instead of chronological release order, since all three games launched out of order. So, to understand the Four Sword, we need to return to the Force Era, before the Zelda timeline split, with the Minish Cap.

The Minish Cap

Despite being the first Zelda game to feature the Four Sword timeline-wise, The Minish Cap is the last game to feature it in terms of release order.

The Minish Cap takes place in the Force Era, and is the first set of events to take place after the timeline was established with Skyward Sword.

The story of the Four Sword starts before the events of The Minish Cap take place. After Hyrule was established at the end of Skyward Sword, the land became engulfed in evil and the Hylians who had become native to the land were under constant attack.

But they were soon saved as a race of tiny creatures they knew as the Picori descended from the sky and blessed them with two gifts, the Picori Blade, and Golden Light, also known as Life Force.

The Hero of Man, depicted to look very similar to Link, wielded these powers to defeat the evil terrorizing the land.

The evil creatures were sealed away into the Bound Chest, which was locked using the Picori Blade and a new era of peace was ushered in.

With their kingdom saved, the royalty of Hyrule made it their duty to ensure that the Bound Chest and the Picori Blade sealing it were protected. While they kept the true nature of the Picori a secret, they would also celebrate them annually with a festival.

Around this time a legend began that, on the 100th Picori Festival, the Picori would re-enter the human realm from their own.

The events of The Minish Cap begin on the day of the 100th Picori Festival, with Link delivering a sword to the castle town, and spending time with Princess Zelda, his childhood friend.

One of the festivities is a sword-fighting competition, wherein the winner would be able to see the legendary Picori Blade in the Chest, and the winner happened to be a mysterious figure called Vaati.

He knew of the legend of the Picori, and assumed that the powerful Light Force was kept inside the Bound Chest, and when he was presented with the chest, he broke the blade sealing it, letting out all the evil creatures held inside.

Sensing Zelda's hidden power, he worried that she would interfere, so he used his skills to petrify her, turning her into stone.

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Vaati fled the scene, and the King tasked Link with fixing the Picori Blade, as only children can witness the Picori and enter their realm, and they are the only ones who can fix the blade needed to save Zelda.

On his way to find the Picori, Link finds a talking cap called Ezlo, after a while Ezlo reveals that he was once a Picori mage, and Vaati was his apprentice, who turned evil after witnessing human corruption and then stole the Mage's Cap to transform Ezlo into a cap.

Upon reaching the Minish village, Link is told he needs to retrieve the power of the four elemental stones (earth, fire, water, and wind) to enhance and fix the Picori Blade.

The Minish refer to themselves as Minish, but are known as Picori by Hylians.

While Link is on his adventure with Ezlo to fix the blade, Vaati possesses the King of Hyrule and uses him to order the army to find the Light Force.

Once Link assembles all four elements at the Elemental Sanctuary he uses them to enhance the Picori Blade, transforming it into the Four Sword, which allows him to split into four ghostly forms (a reference to the cloning ability it holds in previously launched titles, but still upcoming in the timeline).

When this happens, a door in the Sanctuary opens and reveals that the Light Force is inside Zelda. Vaati appears from his hiding place and thanks Link for doing the heavy lifting, and takes the Zelda statue to the roof of the now-corrupted Hyrule Castle to siphon power from her.

While he is not able to siphon it all, he has enough to power himself up for his encounter with Link, transforming into Vaati's Wrath, and Vaati Reborn. But with the new power of the Four Sword he is able to defeat him, which returns Zelda and Ezlo to their original forms, with Ezlo using the recovered Mage's Cap from Vaati to return the land to normal.

Four Swords

Like The Minish Cap, there are important events to the narrative of Four Swords, and the Four Sword itself, that take place before the events of the game.

Still before the timeline split, and taking place after The Minish Cap, but an undisclosed amount of time after, Vaati, who was presumed dead, revives. He makes a palace in the sky, using his wind mage powers to steal women from all around Hyrule in his lair.

Vaati has forgotten his life as a Picori, and the events of The Minish Cap, likely due to this game launching before it.

Another unknown hero, potentially a reincarnation of Link, wielded the power of the Four Sword, and used it to seal Vaati inside the Elemental Sanctuary, now a lot more run-down but still functional as a base for the Four Sword.

It was housed near Hyrule Castle,and it became the job of Zelda and her descendants to look over the seal to see if it was weakening. On one trip, the seal was weak enough for Vaati to break free and kidnap Zelda, taking her back to his old palace.

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The Link of this time is instructed by a Great Fairy to wield the Four Sword and split into four versions of himself so he can save Zelda from Vaati.

To gain access to Vaati's castle, the four Links needed to collect rupees in the domains of each of the three elemental Great Fairies who preside over different regions of Hyrule to gain their trust.

The four Links eventually make their way to Vaati, confront him in his wrath form, and defeat him, saving Zelda, and imprisoning Vaati once again in the Elemental Sanctuary, using the Four Sword.

Four Swords Adventures

Unlike the previous two chapters in the Four Sword saga, Four Swords Adventures takes place after the timeline split, in the child timeline.

Between this game and the first Four Swords, the events of Ocarina of Time split the timeline, and then create the child timeline that started with Majora's Mask, then Twilight Princess, and then leads onto Four Sword Adventures.

After the events of Twilight Princess, relations between the Gerudo people and the Hylians improve enough to be friendly again, but things take a turn when Ganondorf is reborn into the Gerudo people of this generation. After he grows up, he breaks the taboo of his people, and breaks into the pyramid guarding the Trident and uses it in his quest for power.

This mirror was used to seal away a 'Dark Tribe' similar to the Twilight Mirror being used to seal away the Dark Interlopers (an event explained in Twilight Princess), but officially the two objects have an unknown connection.

Ganondorf's first goal was to revive Vaati to be his ally, but he was still sealed away by the Four Sword. Instead, he used Shadow Links spawned from the Dark Mirror to cause chaos so he could plan to set him free.

Zelda, seeing trouble brewing, gathered the six maidens used to help guard the Elemental Sanctuary as well as Link, to defend the Four Sword in the Sanctuary. However, as soon as they open the door to the Sanctuary, the maidens and Zelda are swept away by the dark magic overrunning Hyrule.

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Thinking he needs to save them, Link brandishes the Four Sword, splitting into four, but doing so also unleashes Vaati. Vaati escapes, and over time, the Four Sword has lost the Light Force that made it so strong, so the Links need to gather this from around Hyrule, while also saving the maidens and eventually Zelda.

Using the powers of the Four Sword, the Links save the maidens and liberate the soldiers of Hyrule that were transformed by the dark magic, and eventually can use their power to travel up to Vaati's new palace in the sky.

The Links are once again able to defeat Vaati and break the Dark Mirror, finally slowing down the demons attacking Hyrule.

With Zelda's help, they defeat Ganon soon after, even though he believes he is unbeatable with the power of the Trident. The Links return to one as they use the Four Sword to seal Ganon this time, and peace is restored to Hyrule.

The Current Status Of The Four Sword

The Four Sword is still hidden away in the Elemental Sanctuary in all three split timelines in The Legend of Zelda, but has had a little more action in the child timeline, as well as sealing Vaati in the lost hero and adult timeline, but Ganon in the child timeline.

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